Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
Assessment, which is indispensable in the process of language teaching and learning, is asignificant element of instruction. Assessment tries to discover what students are becoming orhave accomplished It includes not only summative assessment but also formativeassessment. The former is always used to check the result of students' learning activity whilethe latter emphasizes the process of students’ learning activity. For a long time, universities inChina mostly depend on summative assessment for evaluation of students' performance, that is,using test scores to evaluate learning and teaching. Currently in universities, summativeassessment still occupies a dominant proportion while formative assessment only takes up avery small percentage. This kind of assessment system can not reflect how the students leam,neither can it show their comprehension, confusion and so on. The centre of the system isteachers; students, lacking the feedback of their process of self-leaming, only can passivelyaccept the evaluation of their teachers. This evaluation system exerts a passive effect on thedevelopment of students' personality and results in their being excessively anxious about theirstudy. Compared with traditional summative assessment, formative assessment which is firstintroduced by Scriven , is an ongoing assessment which can provide additional qualitativeinformation on students' learning progress. Firm evidence shows that formative assessment isan essential factor of classroom work and its development can raise the standard of students'achievement in the classroom ⑶.But to most teachers and students, the primary purpose ofassessment is to measure the achievement of individuals. As a result, many people take tests asthe equivalent of assessment which is then departed from language learning.
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1.2 SigniHcance of The Research
Some people have now come to realize the negative influence of using summativeassessment only. Because of the overemphasis on the scores of assessment, some students whoget high marks may be encouraged to leam, while a lot of students who get low marks will bediscouraged to leam. For these students, a vicious cycle in their learning of English readingemerges. That is the worse the result is, the poorer their performance will be, the lessinteresting and confidence they have, and then the worse the achievement will be. However, ifthe problems can be solved in the process of learning, students will improve their readingability and then they may gain interest and confidence in English learning again. However,traditional assessment, which emphasizes the competition or results of the students and payslittle attention to students' learning process, inevitably creates losers and winners. Thisevaluation system of test-score alone discourages students significantly and cares little forstudents' great potential of improvement. So what we need to do is to help all the students tomake progress and achieve their best.The purpose of this study is to find out a more effective way of assessment to improvestudents' reading ability. The theoretical significance of the study is to help modify and perfectthe theory of formative assessment and provide valuable information for assessment system.The practical significance of the study is to find an effective way to improve students readingability and to ameliorate teaching，英语论文范文，英语论文
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